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Male borderlines

Borderline is already under-diagnosed in women, more often depression, histrionic personality, (ego, identity) anxiety or narcissism.

But male borderlines are under-diagnosed even more than that. Usually men are tarred as sociopaths (antisocial personality) if they feel empty, or narcissitic personality if they’re grandiose (faking it).

A lot of manosphere and self-proclaimed redpill types match this, and even complain when (other) borderlines are attracted to them, or plain narcissists (there is a co-dependency between the conditions in romantic attachments, the NPD feeds off the BPD’s attention and false identity is created like an ego plug, for both).

Red flags to look for include:

Frequent romantic relationships (often too close together): Do you know a male who has been with tons of women? Did this guy feel guilty or did they feel admired? Believe it or not, some males with BPD symptoms will date multiple women (feel guilty later) and refuse to commit due to a fear of abandonment. Other males will “scare” their spouses away with their quick tempers, argumentativeness, and sometimes even physical aggression. An interaction with a male with BPD may include the individual saying any and everything to trigger their spouses anger. Their relationships may be frequent and too fast. Individuals with BPD tend to be emotional which is why some individuals pursue multiple relationships that begin too fast and end before you can blink.

Drama laden behaviors and attitudes: Most of society, primarily men, would say that “women are dramatic.” Some women would agree. In fact, it is a natural thing for women to be emotional with all of the emotions and hormonal fluctuations. But for males, the drama would look at bit different. For example, I previous worked with a 13 year old male who would come to therapy idealizing me and his work with me almost all month until the final week of the month when he would become very detached emotionally and standoffish. He fluctuated between liking me and confiding in me, to rejecting my ideas and therapeutic support. During these “episodes,” he would also break up with a girl and pursue another. He would also reach out to old girlfriends via texting with the excuse that: “I didn’t end things right, I need to make it right.” This continued for years.

Roller Coaster emotions, thoughts, and behaviors: Again, as stated above, most men are not dramatic but sometimes the way in which emotions are expressed can feel like multiple personalities. Men with BPD will often become “hot” and “cold,” change perspective quickly, or exhibit very angry and hostile emotions toward others. This is the type of person who will exhibit a consistent and stable pattern of behavior, perhaps even for a long time, and then quickly change into what seems like a completely different person. An example of this would be a teenager being a “daddy’s girl” one moment, and then later telling the father how awful of a person he is and how unfair his parenting is.

Hot and Cold interactions with others:Some individuals with BPD really struggle with relationships and often have trouble with interpretation of comments, body language, and emotions. For example, a male with BPD might find it quite disturbing that his wife speaks to other men while in public. He might begin to behave oddly such as being emotionally distant, becoming easily angered, not openly communicating, or begin taking everything personally. This same man may later act as if nothing happened and instantly appear to be one of the most fair spouses you could ever have. The emotions of BPD are like a roller coaster at times and it can be difficult to determine what emotion the individual might exhibit from one moment to another.

Frequent suicide attempts or SIB: It is a known fact within the world of psychology and psychiatry that individuals with suicidal ideations (i.e., thoughts), gestures, or threats will often use suicide as a way to manipulate their loved ones or somehow prove that they are “lovable.” For example, the man above on #4 might become so jealous of his wife talking to other men than he decides to tell his wife that he will kill himself if she does not refuse to talk to other men.In this case, suicidal thoughts, threats, or in gestures is used to manipulate someone else. However, there are individuals who are seriously considering suicide because the symptoms of BPD “causes” difficulties in various domains.The pain is so intensified including the fear of abandonment that suicidal thoughts may temporarily comfort the sufferer.

Attention seeking behaviors: Some individuals with BPD (primarily adolescents with BPD traits) crave attention, even if it is negative. The loud attitude, the blatant and aggressive words, the criticism, the accusations of being unloved and abandoned all draw attention to the individual. Males who exhibit BPD traits will often cut themselves or harm themselves in some way and then draw attention to how they harmed themselves. Other males with BPD traits may engage in risky behaviors such as unprotected sex, having multiple mother of multiple children, domestically abusing his family, making threats to keep everyone afraid and confused, or entertaining a negative group of peers (e.g., gang involvement),

Dependency/co-dependency: Co-dependency or dependency is often a very common symptom of BPD. As stated above, the fear of abandonment makes it difficult for individuals with BPD to maintain safe, healthy, an satisfying relationships. On the other hand, there may be times when someone connected to the individual with BPD begins to rely, emotionally and psychologically, on the individual with BPD. The relationship is dependent upon the other individual who may be just as (or more) emotionally and psychologically unstable.

Anger outbursts but social charm: Many of us are used to hearing that sociopaths or narcissists are superficial, shallow, and manipulative. But we must also consider that an individual with BPD (who may also have other diagnoses) can become very angry to the point of manipulating situations or responding to confrontations/arguments inappropriately. Anger outbursts can occur more than we think in individuals with BPD.

To any kind of personality condition, they refuse to accept responsibility for their actions or the outcomes because it’s so integral to who they are, they cannot conceive other means. It will always be the fault of the Other e.g. so a gay BPD man will blame all Other man, a straight BPD man will blame all Other/ all women, see what I mean with the manosphere thing? Is that not exactly what they do?

Despite claiming to be alpha (no grit, no LT plans like a psychopath) and chill (apathetic), they frequently burst into rage online, in articles and videos and in person. They usually have domestic abuse accusations on file, but like a psycho, play victim. You can’t be the strong one and the victim. However, they’re highly emotional and try to talk out of this with rationalization, confusing it for rationality because again, they have no true identity so may think they’re ASPD and secretly getting one over on everything, but in truth they don’t even know what those things mean e.g. loyalty, love, rationality, they lack a sense of self like a baby.

PUA appears to be an excuse that all the antisocial behaviours are signalled as positive e.g.

I’m not a slut, I’m a stud!

Women don’t want me? Women can’t have me! Nobody can hold me down!

I’m not dramatic, I’m exciting!

Draining? You’ll miss me when I’m gone!

I’m not mean, I’m funny!

I treat them badly because they deserve it, and I deserve to be worshipped because I am Manly Man McAlpha!

I’m not lonely, I’m a lone wolf!

I could get any woman I want, they’d be so lucky to have a user like me.

When I’m cold, it’s cool. When a woman’s cold, she’s a frigid bitch and there’s something wrong with her.